//------------------------------// // Maybe It Is All A Test // Story: What We Don't Talk About // by Silent Whisper //------------------------------// “I just can’t stop thinking about it!” I whined as quietly as I could, making my wife peer up from her book over the covers at me. “What about?” She yawned, bookmarking her page but not setting it aside yet, probably waiting to see how big my complaint was. She knew me so well. Unfortunately for her novel, it wasn’t a minor issue that was bothering me. “The idea! My creativity has improved since we moved away from the distractions of Ponyville, and I can split my focus like no other pony to create whatever I have in mind, but how can I possibly meet the demands of everypony if I can’t remember the fleeting ideas I come up with?” “The idea from earlier? The one yer sister interrupted, right?” Applejack leaned back against the headboard and held a hoof to her chin, a bit conflicted. “Ain’t ya got lots of ideas, though? I mean, look at how well yer doin’ now! That one magazine, the Mare-Mirror one, they requested yer designs for their cover! They wouldn’t if they didn’t think ya got what they want!” “Maybe I did!” I threw my hooves up, and then winced at the ache. It didn’t matter, my emotions were too much to be constrained to movements that wouldn’t make my sore body complain along with me a bit. “That’s the whole problem, dearest! Maybe that was the idea that would’ve led me to something new, something unexpected and yet exactly what they’re looking for! And now it’s gone.” I slouched forward and groaned. I felt the covers rustle as Applejack shrugged. “It ain’t a disaster, that’s just how the creative process goes sometimes, far as I get it. Everypony deals with it, even ponies that get close ta bein’ at yer level, dearest.” A warm hoof rubbed my shoulder soothingly. “I know, but-” “Besides, even if it ain’t perfect, whatever idea ya do come up with will delight them, Ah’m sure. They won’t know what they’ll never see.” Applejack’s laugh was gentle, considerate, and not at all what I wanted to hear at the moment. I levered myself up to a rumpled sitting position and pouted. “It isn’t just this magazine that I’m worried about! It’s the next deadline, the next design, and the ones after that! Why, everypony hits a creative plateau sometimes, and when that happens I’ll be at the mercy of the public’s whims!” Shuddering, I pulled aside the covers and got to my hooves. “I need them, Applejack. I need the ideas I keep losing, for the days when I don’t have enough.” “Where ya goin’, Rares?” The tired drawl of my wife’s voice was edged with something, a level of attentiveness that made my heart race with anxiety. There was, after all, a downside to somepony knowing me nearly as well as I knew myself. “Just to the bathroom, darling!” I walked out of the bedroom, casually stumbling a bit, muscles still stiff. “Going to splash some water on my face, and maybe get a drink on my way back. Let me know if you want anything while I’m up, alright?” My pace quickened the moment I was out of her sight, and I all but galloped to turn on the bathroom light and root through the medicine cabinet. The sleeping pills weren’t among the vitamins and supplements. Neither were the pain meds, though I faintly remembered having a few after supper, so their misplacement was likely my fault. I bent down to look under the sink cabinet, and scowled at the cleaning supplies, or rather, the lack thereof. There was toilet paper, certainly, but nothing that would help- “Y’know, Ah like to think Ah know ya, Rares. An’ one thing Ah know about ya?” A hoof firmly yanked me out from the cabinet, hard enough for my rump to smack against the wall with a muted thud. “Yer a terrible liar, even after all this time, ‘least to me.” “I wasn’t!” I yelped, bracing myself against the bathroom wall, slamming the cabinet door shut with a bit more force than necessary. “Looking for the cup! That’s all I was doing!” “Bull,” The most beautiful mare in Equestria snapped, jade-green eyes glaring daggers into mine. “We gotta talk about this. It’s a normal problem yer facin’, Rarity. Ponies forget ideas all the time, then remember they had ‘em later on, or they don’t, and then they’re all the same fer forgettin’.” I dusted myself off and fixed the bath mat I’d half-flipped, determined to stand my ground. “It is normal, yes, but I can’t be merely normal! Not in Manehattan or anywhere else that matters, not when I’m competing against entire agencies and studios full of creative minds! I’m so close, Applejack, you know that!” She took one step towards me, and I felt the faux tile tremble with the force of her stomp. “Close to what? We both know there ain’t a top ta this here mountain yer climbin’! Ah respect that, and Ah understand yer gonna keep going no matter what, but yer still just one pony doin’ the work of many!” “But I’m not one pony!” I press one hoof against her chest, trying not to dwell on the softness of her fur, the warmth underneath it. “We’re both in this, you and me, and I need to be the best I can be if I’m going to be anything here. I need every boost I can get!” “Yer everything to me,” Applejack replied, her voice all the more forceful for how suddenly gentle it was. An internal war raged in her eyes, one I was secretly grateful I wasn’t privy to. “And yer already the best pony Ah could ever ask for.” She snorted and stomped off towards the kitchen. “Ya don’t need a boost, ya just need to think straight fer once. If ponies are judging ya for not keeping up with entire teams of designers singlehoofedly, they can buck themselves.” I sniffled and angrily wiped at my eyes in case any traitorous tears started to form. “I can’t help it, okay? I can’t help wanting to be better, to be more than I already am. You see the best in me, dearest, but you can’t see all the ways I need to be better! I can’t…” My vision wavered and I wiped at my eyes again. I heard a cabinet creak open from the direction of the kitchen. “Ya can’t what?” Applejack called after I floundered to reorder my thoughts as best as I could. “I can’t go back.” I straighten myself up as much as I can and try to ignore the teary-eyed mess in the mirror. “I can’t go back to who I was. I can’t go back to Ponyville and be the humble little Rarity I used to be because it’ll feel like I failed. I’ve gotten this far, we’ve gotten this far together. I can’t stop now, I just can’t!” A few tears streaked down my cheeks as I bent over the sink, avoiding my own gaze, mane falling in a tangled mess over my eyes. “I’m going to go as far as I can, and I’d-” My throat chokes up for a moment and I swallow to try again. “I can’t do it alone, Applejack.” A sigh came from the bathroom doorway, resigned and tired. “But yer gonna try somethin’, anythin’ if it means you’ll get to keep tryin’ again tomorrow. Ah’ve always loved that about you, that ya don’t settle for second best when ya could be getting first. Yer dream’s like a swim against a current that never has a destination, but ya ain’t gonna let that stop ya.” “You-” A sniffle made my mane flutter in front of my face and I didn't move to fix it. “You know, most ponies think that’s annoying, or that I’m stupid for trying for something I can’t definitively win. But you really love that about me?” A hoof rested on my shoulder as I heard her set a cup on the bathroom counter, and I heard Applejack take a deep breath in. “Yeah. Ah really do. We're the same, in that way. You'll never stop goin' for it, and I'll never stop supporting you.” Her other hoof cupped my chin, raising my head up as she massaged my jaw, and only then did I realize that I’d been clenching it. I felt her stance shift as she pulled me closer and relaxed against her, taking deep breaths to try to calm down. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as the hoof on my jaw trailed up my cheek, brushing against my unruly mane. “Don’t be,” Applejack said quietly, and her soft hoof rubbed a little circle on my cheek right before she wrenched it, twisting my head towards her in a sudden jerk, her other hoof around my shoulders bracing my body against the countertop. Time slowed to a crawl as a crack reverberated through my skull. I tried to gasp but there was nothing there, it was as though there’s nothing to gasp with. My body felt tingly and indistinct and wrong. I got the distinct sense I should be far more worried about that than I was as I felt a dizzying sensation of falling. The room spun, and then it was sideways. An orange hoof pulled back my mane, and there was Applejack. She looked like she was trying to say something. All I could hear was the blood rushing to my head, roaring like rapids. Green eyes, the most perfect green eyes looked into my own, and they’re the last thing I could make out as the room dims. I can't hear my heartbeat, I faintly thought with an odd sense of hollow amusement. I thought I'd feel it for sure before I- Everything shut off like a hoof flicking a light switch.